ArtsSF

If ever there was a super nova explosion to radically realign the orderly world of music, it was Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” currently the focal point of the S.F. Symphony’s Stravinsky Festival. Over the past century, it has lost that sting originally setting off what’s called the biggest concert-hall riot in history. But it has lost none of its impact, bringing the audience to its feet, not clubbing nearby patrons as in the Paris world premiere, but this time cheering…

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The S.F. Symphony’s Stravinsky Festival spotlights the mercurial composer who flew like a brilliant comet from Russia to Paris to America, launching new musical expression while changing music forever. Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) reminds me of the legendary prince who cut through impenetrable thickets and brambles to reach his prize, revealing a beauty of a different sort. The composer took out the lush undergrowth and cleared the footing, to where the new modern prince could gallop through with puckish delight  and…

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The San Francisco Symphony’s two favorite 73-year-olds made music in what the audience regarded more as entertainment than concert. The stars were in conjunction when violinist Itzhak Perlman and his friend, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, collaborated on several works, both classical and movie, in the SFS season-opener gala Sept. 5. Of special interest were a sextet of former Perlman violin students  shouldering some of the performance burden alongside the master, all seven joining in a wild and woolly fiddle-faddle…

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